Falling in Love with a Ghost
by Olive Everclear
Summary: Finntana one-shot.


Finn heard his phone ringing, he tried to ignore it at first but whoever called him called again. This time he opened his eyes. The alarm clock next to his bed read 1:45 AM. He groaned and picked up the phone, clicking the answer button.

"This better be important." He snapped into the phone, not even sure who was calling him.

"Sorry, I know it's late." Santana said he was a little confused to why she was calling but before he could ask that she continued with, "My dad forgot something at home and made me run it to the hospital and my car broke down. I lost my Triple A card and I'm walking home. I tried to call Brittany and Puck but their phones were off."

Finn groaned a little. "You need a lift?"

"No, no…I'm like a few streets from my house. I just didn't want to be completely alone. You know?"

"Yea, sure…"

She did most the talking really, he would answer every once in a while just so she would know he hadn't fallen asleep on her.

"Oh…hold on…some unknown number is calling me. Stay on the line. Please?"

"Sure." He said in a sleepy tone.

His eyes open back up and the clock reads 3:23 AM. He hears the dial tone beeping in his ear and he feels awful for falling asleep on Santana. He tries to call her to apologize but her phone goes straight to voicemail. He assumes she got home and turned her phone off. He'll say sorry at school.

That was the plan at least, he doesn't see Santana all day at school and he's freaking out a little. No one has heard from her and no one has seen her. He gets to Glee early and finally he finds her, sitting on top of the piano.

"Hey, sorry about last night," He tells her the moment their eyes meet.

She looks around and then back at him. "Are you talking to me?"

Finn rolls his eyes at her. "Who else would I be talking to, San?"

She jumps off the piano and walks toward him, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open a little. "You can see me?"

"Are you messing with me?" She shakes her head. Artie and Brittany come into the choir room and they walk right pass Santana. Santana looks at them with a sad expression on her face. "Are you two in a fight?" Finn whispers.

"Um…no, we're not in a fight?" Artie answers, though Finn was talking to Santana. "Why would you think that?"

Finn looks at them and they both are staring at him like he's crazy. "I was talking to Sa—"

"Seriously, where the hell is Lopez today?" Puck shouts as he walks into the room.

"They can't see me." Santana speaks, her voice shaking.

"Are you guys messing with me?" More Glee members walk in, not even giving Santana a glance. "Seriously, it's not funny."

"What is he talking about?" Quinn whispers to Brittany and she shrugs.

Mr. Schuester walks in, looking all sad. Everyone takes their seats, everyone except Santana; she's vanished which makes Finn think he's going crazy.

"Guys, I just got off the phone with Mrs. Lopez and Santana didn't come home last night. She wants to know if any of you have seen or talked to her at all in the last twelve hours."

Everyone is silent. Puck and Brittany both say she called them but they both missed the call. Quinn says they hung out for a few hours after school but she went home at like six; before dinner.

"I talked to her." Finn says, raising his hand a little.

"Ok, tell us one more time what happened." The detective said, sitting across from him with his little notepad out, writing stuff down.

Finn sighs a little; this has got to be the tenth time he's told this story today. "At 1:45 AM I woke up because Santana was calling me. When I answered she told me it was because she had to take something to her dad at the hospital and on her way home her car broke down."

"The Lopez family has Triple A, why didn't she call them?"

"She told me she lost her card for them."

"Alright, and what else happened?"

"She said she was only a few streets away from home so I said I'd stay on the line with her."

"What did you talk about with her?"

"I don't know. Just a bunch of random stuff like…Cheerio practice. And she made fun of Blaine and his bow tie obsession and how it was rubbing off on my step brother."

The detective jotted the information down. "Ok, what is Cheerios?"

"Oh, it's what the cheerleading team is called at our school."

"And Blaine would be?"

"Blaine is our friend from school. He's in the Glee club with us."

"Ok and anything else?"

Finn shook his head. "I honestly wasn't paying that much attention. I was sleepy. But I do remember her saying that some unknown number was calling her and that she was going to pick up real quick but to stay on the line."

"And did you?"

"I accidentally fell asleep."

"Alright, you can go now."

"There's actually one more thing…I don't know if it was real or a dream though."

"Ok, what is it?"

"Well, I couldn't see anything but I could hear Santana and she was screaming. But then she stopped and I heard like…a crashing sound? Like, the phone hitting the ground; and then just the dial tone, which is what I woke up to. The dial tone that is."

He doesn't tell anyone about how he saw Santana in the choir room at school. He doesn't want everyone to think he's crazy. But he is still freaking out about that a little. He goes home and just wants to nap; he was at the station for three hours. But when he walks into his room he sees a very freaked out Santana sitting on his bed.

"Santana! Everyone's been looking for you."

He notices then that she's crying. "Am I dead?"

"How can I see you?" He whispers, shutting his door so no one could see him talking to himself.

She shrugs and starts crying a little harder. He walks over to the bed, sits beside her. He thinks about patting her back but if she's a ghost then he'll just go right through her. He's not sure what to do but he wants to comfort her. Before he can react, she folds into him and he's surprised that she didn't just go right through him.

He tries to comfort her and finally she stops crying. They sit together on his bed in silence for a long time. He's still a little confused as to how he could see Santana. He knows for a fact that he is the only one to see her because about an hour ago Kurt came into his room and told him that the police found Santana's car on the side of the street and they think it was tampered with.

When Kurt leaves Finn turns to Santana and she looks really scared. "Someone had this planned?"

"You'll be ok, San. The cops are going to find you and everything will be ok."

"Can I stay here tonight?"

Finn nods because he has no clue where else she can stay. She's not really here but at the same time she is. They crawl under the covers together and go to sleep. Finn is still amazed that he can not only see Santana but touch her.

When he wakes up the next morning she's gone. He's convinced he dreamed up the whole thing or at least he did until he went downstairs to the kitchen and saw her sitting on the kitchen counter. Once again he thought it was the real Santana but before he could say anything his mom came in and opened up the cabinet right behind Santana, making her disappear.

It was kind of surreal and he felt like he was in some horror movie, expect Santana didn't scare him now that he's seen her cry like she did last night.

She's back by the time he pours himself a bowl of cereal and she's sitting on the couch, flipping through the channel.

"Santana," He whispers. "Don't you think it'll be weird if the t. v. is just playing with no one touching the remote?"

Santana shrugs and he looks toward the kitchen. When he looks at the t. v. it's off but when he looks at Santana it's on. It takes him a few seconds to realize that whatever Santana is doing isn't happening. The only way you can see it is if you can see her and since he is the only one who can he has nothing to worry about.

She stays with him every night and she appears randomly throughout the day. It's been about a week and he doesn't know why it bothers him. But it does.

"Why don't you go haunt someone else for a few hours?" He says to her one day after school.

She looks hurt by it and he immediately feels bad for saying it. "It's not like I'm purposely doing this, Finn."

Finn goes to say he's sorry but she just disappears on him. He hates that because after watching Casper he's not sure if she's still in the room or what. The next day at school he pulls Tina aside to ask her some questions about ghosts.

"You're only coming to me with this because I'm the only Goth you know."

"Is that offensive?"

"I haven't decided yet." She sits down beside him and makes herself a little more comfortable. "Ok, what do you want to know?"

"Ok, say you can see ghosts…how is that possible?"

"Finn, are you seeing things?"

"No! I was just watching a movie last night and I'm confused."

Tina eyes him and then sighs. "Well, there are a lot of reasons, if you believe in that stuff. Some people say it's ESP—"

"N?"

"The sports station? Really, Finn. No! ESP as in like…the sixth sense."

"Oh, I love that movie."

Tina shakes her head. "There is another theory…" Finn stops smiling and waits for her to go on. "It's that if the deceased it tethered to someone who is living, they can come back. But only around the person they're tethered to. They can't just pop up anywhere they want."

Finn's eyebrows pull together as he tries to make sense of this. So, either he's gone insane or somehow he is tethered to Santana and she's dead. His eyes go wide at that. He doesn't want her to be dead. "Wait—what if the ghost person isn't dead; like…in that movie Invisible or whatever."

Tina thinks about it for a moment. "Well, maybe…I honestly don't know. But then that would mean the person is in some sort of Limbo and they're dying."

Finn told Santana all about what Tina said later that night when they were up in his room. He apologized about being mean to her and she said it's ok. She'd be pissed off as well. But then Santana gets all upset again because she thinks she's dead.

Finn tries to convince her that it's just like the movie him and Tina talked about and she is only dying. But there is still hope for her. He tells her how he isn't going to let her die and that he promises if the cops can't find her, he would. She grabs him by the collar and kisses him at first he freaks out because he's kissing a ghost, then he freaks out because he's kissing Santana but finally he stops freaking out and gets into it.

She pulls away after a little bit, her eyes wide and her cheeks reddening a little. "I'm sorry."

"No…don't apologize." He says with a goofy smile on his face. "Am I going crazy?"

"I don't think a crazy person would know that they're crazy."

"Unless they're _that _crazy," He counters. And after a few minutes of silence he adds, "Should I like buy clay or something?"

She laughs a little. "Why would you buy clay?"

"Don't ghosts like making things out of clay?"

Santana shakes her head at him. "Are you seriously getting all your ghost information from movies and Tina?" He shrugs his shoulders. "Let's do something else." She whispers and pushes him back on the bed and straddles his hips.

A few months go by but Finn doesn't really notice. He and Santana spend every day together. He's been caught a few times talking to her in an empty classroom or in his room. Everyone thinks he's just grief stricken because he fell asleep on her so no one really says anything.

One after noon he and Santana lay naked together under his covers; he knows it's weird that he's having sex with a ghost but she's extremely real to him so he doesn't really think it's bad or anything. Plus, she is always the one who starts it. She'll appear all half naked on him and push him onto his bed.

But this day was a little different; they were lying together, just staring at each other afterwards. Smiling and having an all-out great time just sitting in silence. She leans into him and kisses him lightly; she pushes her hand in his hair and smiles when she pulls away.

"I love you." She whispers

"I love you too." He whispers back.

As they kiss again he hears a knock on the door. "Finn," It's Kurt calling out to him. Finn pulls away and jumps up from his bed and starts to get dress. Santana does too. "Can I come in?"

"Yea, hold on." He calls back, pulling his pants on. "Why are you getting dressed? He can't see you?" He whispers to Santana; wanting to laugh a little at how quickly she's pulling her clothes on.

She stops and laughs a little. "Oh, right." She sits back on the bed, pulling the covers over her a little.

Finn finishes getting dresses and unlocks the door, letting him in. He looks like he's been crying. "Are you ok?" Kurt shakes his head and he looks back at Santana. She waves and then disappears, knowing that this was going to be a personal conversation.

They move over to his bed and they sit down together. "Brittany just called me." He cries a little more. "They found her cell phone a few blocks from where they found her car. There was a large amount of blood found nearby." Finn's features go hard. "They're looking for a body now; checking lakes and ditches."

Finn's whole world crashes down when he hears this. "No. They can't…they have to keep looking for her." He can feel the tears well up in his eyes. Kurt tries to calm him down but it doesn't work too well. He smashes a few things out of anger and pain but finally his mom comes to his room and calms him down.

They're all invited to some sort of memorial for Santana. Finn doesn't want to go because if he goes that means Santana is dead and he doesn't want to believe that. He tells Santana about it all later that night while they are trying to go to sleep. She tells him she doesn't think she's dead because whenever she's not with him she is somewhere else but it's dark. She says she can hear beeping sounds and people talking.

Finn wants to hold out hope but he's having trouble with it. He goes to the Lopez house, officially meeting her family for the first time ever; he's seen them over the years but never talked to them or anything. Santana's mom is a lawyer and her dad's a doctor; which he already knew. She has a little brother who reminds him a lot of her; the sad smile he greeted everyone with and his eyes are just like hers. He's so sad looking, sitting on the stairs, watching as friends and family pour into the large living room and talk about Santana.

After everyone is done talking and everyone broke into little groups, Finn goes over to her brother.

"Hi, I'm Finn." He says as he sits on the steps next to him.

The little boy looks up at him. "I know who you are."

Finn nods. "What's your name?"

"Ethan."

"How old are you?"

"Nine."

"So, how do you know who I am?"

Ethan stands up and walks up a few steps. He stops and looks at Finn and holds his hand out. "Are you coming or not?"

Finn gets up and follows him, taking the small boy's hand in his. He leads him down the hall and into a room that takes him a few seconds to realize is Santana's. He lets go of him and moves over to the closet, opens it up and walks inside. Finn feels awkward standing in Santana's room. Ethan comes back out of the closet and holds up a photo album. Finn opens it up and starts to flip through it with Ethan.

"There!" He says and puts his hand on top of a page. He taps a picture that takes Finn a few seconds to recognize. It's when he and Santana were in fifth grade and they had an end of school dance and they went together. It was sort of a date, both of their firsts. "There is more." He said and grabbed the book from Finn.

There were a few more pictures of him and Santana together, all from before High School. He's almost forgotten how close they were until now. He feels his eyes get watery and he quickly wipes at them, not wanting to cry anymore.

Ethan makes Finn promise not to tell Santana that he was in her room when the cops find her. Finn's happy that he's not the only one who has given up hope.

A little later he's downstairs, holding the picture of him and Santana at their fifth grade dance in his hands. He's just staring down at it, trying to think about what went wrong with them. They were such good friends. He had the biggest crush on her and if Quinn hadn't come along he was pretty sure him and Santana would have started dating.

"Were you and Santana close?" He hears her mom asks behind him.

"I love her." He whispers, still looking at the picture.

"I didn't know she was dating anyone." She sounds like ten times sadder now.

"We're not dating. But I love her."

"You're still holding out on hope."

"I can't accept that she's gone. I just can't."

He feels a hand squeeze his shoulder. "You should keep that picture."

"Tina!" He shouts, half running down the hall toward her. He pulls her into an empty room and shuts the door.

"What do you want now?"

"You said one of the theories is the whole tether thing. How can someone use that thing to see the person they're tethered to without being dead?"

Tina shakes her head and closes her eyes. "Finn, why do you want—"

"Please, Tina."

She sighs. "Well, you know being tethered mean you have like…an invisible string tying you together. They say if you can have like…an out of body experience you'll be able to see the string. And if you follow it you will find the person you're connected to."

"Well, how do you have an out of the body experience?"

"I don't know, Finn."

Later that day, in his room, he fires up his laptop and types into Google, "How do you have an out of body experience." He's alone and the door is locked so he thinks it's safe to search this.

"What are you doing?" Santana asks popping up out of nowhere. She sees the picture sitting next to the computer; she picks it up and looks at him, kind of angry looking. "Where did you get this?" He doesn't answer; he just keeps searching through the links that's popped up. She leans over him and looks at the computer and sees what he typed into the search bar. "Are you seriously Googling that?"

"When you try to find me, do you see a string connecting us?" When she doesn't answer, "I'm going to find you, Santana."

"You're crazy."

Finn reads up on all these theories on having an out of body experience. He finds a pretty good one and starts getting ready for the night. Santana makes fun of him but he just tunes her out. He tells her that tonight she can't hang out with him because he needs to focus hard on this.

She kisses him goodnight and wishes him luck. He gets the room extra dark and nice and toasty, puts on some loose clothes like the website says and puts his mom's back massager under the mattress so it lightly shakes his bed. He gets onto the covers, closes his eyes and says the little thing that the website tells him he should say. He starts to breathe through his mouth, half opened. The next step tells him to focus on an object. He doesn't know what to focus on so he just thinks of Santana; her voice, her face, all zipping through his mind. He begins to drift off and he thankfully remembers the third step; focus on the darkness. He can feel his body relaxing like never before.

He starts to think about lifting up, flying, floating; just like the website told him to do. He was sure it wasn't working and he felt really stupid for even trying. He was sure Santana was going to tease him tomorrow but when he opened his eyes he was looking at himself.

"Oh, Shit. It worked?" He looked around his room, proud of himself. "And she called me crazy."

He then remembered the whole point of doing this and looked down at his sleeping body and just like Tina said, there was a red string sticking out of his chest. He kept his eye on the thin string and followed it out of his room, down the stairs and out of his house. He looked up the road and sighed a little, having a feeling he was going to be walking for a long time. He bent down and picked the string up and before he knew it the world was flashing pass him.

He finally came to a stop and he was inside a dark room, he could hear beeping sounds and muffled voices just like Santana said. He felt around on the wall until he found a light switch and flipped it. He saw Santana laying on some make shift hospital bed with a bunch of tubes sticking into her arms.

He rushes over to her and tries to find out what they're doing to her. He hears someone yelling saying something like they can't keep her here. Finn brushes some of Santana's hair out of her face and then heads out of the door and up the stairs. Apparently these people are keeping her in their basement.

There is a guy sitting in a chair looking all sad and angry. A woman is pacing back and forth. "Because of you this family thinks their daughter is dead. She's not going to be under forever. I can't hide her here forever!" She yells at him.

"I've been listening to this shit for months now. What do you want me to do?" He yelled at her.

"TURN YOURSELF IN!" She yells back and knocks a vase off the fire place; it falls to the ground and shatters.

Finn runs outside and checks the address. He knows this house. It's a few blocks from Puck's place. He's seen it hundreds of times before. He goes back downstairs and lies beside Santana until he somehow wakes back up in his bed.

When he wakes up, Santana is lying beside him and he smiles a little. "I found you." He whispers.

He calls in an anonymous tip from a pay phone, telling them that he saw someone bring her into the house and that he was sure he saw her in the basement through a window. He hangs back and watches the house as the police show up. A few of the neighbors come out and start to watch, curious as to what's going on.

About twenty minutes later, Santana is brought out on a stretcher and raced to the hospital. He heads there as well, wanting to be there for her when she wakes up. He would have thought he'd be the first since he was at the scene when they brought her out, but the whole Glee club and her parents and little brother is there. Finn sits next to Ethan in the waiting room; Ethan is just smiling like he knew this would happen sooner or later. Finn's happy to see him happy.

Turns out the guy who kidnapped Santana was the son of some client Santana's mom got locked up in prison. He had been following her around for a while and took his chance the night she went to the hospital to drop paperwork off for her dad. He messed her car up and when she broke down he followed her. He only meant to scare her, according to the guy. But things went south when he ran up on her. Being who Santana was, she tried to fight back which made him nervous so he hit her and then got scared and didn't know what to do. He took Santana back to his place; his mom was some sort of at home care person and was able to hook her up.

The guy confessed and made some sort of plea to keep his mom out of trouble because she was trying to help Santana and convince him to turn himself in. Santana's parents more or less agree with that deal because the woman really was trying to help.

Everyone had been sitting in the waiting room for hours. No one was allowed to visit Santana, she wasn't even awake but Finn wanted to be by her side. They were all sent home eventually though. Santana was in his room when he got home and he instantly felt panicked by it. But then he noticed she didn't look the same, she looked less…real. It was like she was fading.

"Lay with me?" She whispers.

Finn smiles a little at her and they lay together in his bed like they have for so many nights. He can feel her less and less as the night goes on and she fades even more. By the time the sun rises, she's gone. Finn goes back to the hospital and hangs out in the waiting room.

One of the nurses lets him into Santana's room and he pulls a chair up to her bed and just sits beside her, waiting for her to wake up. Hours go by and he falls asleep, his hand in hers and his head resting on the edge of the bed.

Santana's mom comes into the room while Finn is asleep. She brushes Santana's hair out and fixes the blankets a little. She does her best to not disturb Finn. When Santana wakes up (which is the second time since she's been in the hospital; she woke up late last night), she's a little confused by why Finn is lying next to her.

"What's he doing here?" She whispers to her mom who is sitting in another chair, flipping through a magazine.

"I'm going to go ahead and guess he's waiting for you to wake up." She answers and then looks up from the magazine. "He's a sweet guy. Don't break him."

A few weeks go by and Santana is finally well enough to go back to school. Finn can't help but smile whenever he sees her. He walks over to her one day during the break between classes. He gets a little bold and wraps his arms around her waist, kissing the side of her neck lightly.

"Hey." He says when she turns to him.

She's looking at him like he's crazy. "Why did you just kiss me?"

"Um…" He tries to think of a way to word it. He was pretty sure they were more or less together now given the time they spent together while she was missing.

"You're weird, Finn. So, stay away from me." She closes her locker up. "And stop staring at me all that time. It freaks me out."

She walks away from him and he's even more confused. Why was she suddenly blowing him off? She told him she loved him and now she was acting like how she uses to. He sees Tina walking down the hall and he runs up to her.

"Last ghost question," He says the moment she looks at him.

"Fine."

"Say the person wasn't dead and the whole tethered thing was true and the person was saved. Will they remember the time they sent in limbo?"

Tina thinks for a few seconds and then answers, "No. It's like they're dreaming and the moment they wake up all of it is gone. Whatever happened during that time is lost forever."

Finn gulps and looks back toward Santana who is laughing and talking with Puck, hugging him and letting him whisper stuff into her ear. He's pretty sure what's going on given it's Puck and Santana. "Thanks Tina." He says and then heads into a different direction not wanting to witness their flirting.


End file.
